Desert on the Lighter Side: Winter Fruits Marinated In White Wine

I found this gorgeous picture on Pintrest of oranges, grapefruit, and pomegranates. And I was like, “I tooootally need to make something with oranges, grapefruit, and pomegranate. That’s flippin’ gorgeous.” Then as I was flipping through the desert section of Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking (again in case you haven’t figured it our from my recent posts, best Italian cookbook everrr!) I noticed a recipe for Mangoes and Strawberries in Sweet White Wine. And I was like, “Oohh that sounds gooood! I should make some version of this for a blog post.” And it was January at the time. So like many people (maybe even you?) I was working on loosing a few pounds. 

Good looking picture+good looking recipe+January/eat better craze= Winter Fruits Marinated in White Wine. 

The kind of looks like a chemical equation to me…. GLP+GLR+J/EBC=WFMiWW….. sorry I digress.

The inspirations for this one just kind of aligned themselves on their own this time. And I’m very pleased they did because this is a lighter but very yummy winter desert. I am actually really pleased to be doing a desert that is mostly made with fruit, since I think that is a real fit for the Italian eating style. Unlike many Americans (myself included), Italians traditionally don’t serve baked goods frequently. They are more of a special occasion or Sunday dinner kind of thing. Fruit is often served as desert to, as my Grandmother would say, “sweeten up your mouth” at the end of the meal. Certainly this more balanced approach to desert is likely to be healthier then a constant barrage of baked goods. Plus with that whole lose a few pounds thing, eating fruit for desert instead of baked goods is a habit I would really like to do better with myself. 

One of the nice things about this recipe is that if you serve it in something pretty, it actually looks quite lovely and pulled together, despite being pretty simple, and incredibly easy to make. A few thoughts for you on the recipe to help it turn out best:

1. Ideally (and traditionally) this recipe should be made with an Italian Moscato (a sweet desert wine). If you can’t find an Italian Moscato a sweet late harvest Riesling will work very nicely. I ended up using Chateau Ste. Michelle Harvest Select Sweet Riesling to great effect. As long as you select a sweet wine, the wine will enhance the natural sweetness of the fruit, and give you a real desert rather then something that reads as a cocktail. (Though if you really enjoy desert wines like Moscato or Riesling you can serve the fruit fully submerged in wine as opposed to marinated for a desert/cocktail effect and more wine!)
2. If you are using grapefruit, or any fruit that can have a bitter tone to it, be sure to select a sweeter wine and consider adding the optional sugar. Bitter tones from fruit like grapefruit can end up spreading their flavor through the wine and other fruits rather then the wine sweetening the grapefruit. 
3. This really can be made with any fruit you choose. Pick something seasonal. In summer you might want to try peaches and strawberries for example. Around my parts oranges and grapefruit are looking good. Pomegranates are hit or miss right now. Pears are also a safe bet. If you use yucky fruit this will turn out, well, kinda yucky. Just sayin’.

So lets have our fruit and eat it too. 

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